Now That Trump Has Won

I never would have guessed it. In the days leading up to the election, I was in denial towards the view that, not only would Trump win, but it would be a landslide. With Arizona, Michigan, and Alaska still not called and New Hampshire flipping back and forth, Trump will end up with either 306 electorates or 310 electorates. Hillary will either have 228 or 232. I wouldn't call this a landslide. In 2012 Obama got 332 versus Romney’s 206 and won 51.1% of the popular vote. At this point with 97% reporting, Trump is losing the popular vote. Voting is down roughly 7% over 2012.

Here’s what's most important: the Republicans now control the Presidency, the Senate, the House, and have gained 3 more governorships. I am ecstatic that Hillary lost. I don't think we can underestimate the importance of Hillary losing. We have reported on her fatal flaws many times, here and here, but I hope that the citizens will with more urgency hold the Republicans accountable, and that the Republicans will seize control of Trump's agenda and push forward a Biblically Conservative platform.

My fear is that this will be a repeat of Bush’s first term, with the Republicans in full control by 2002, we got sucked into Iraq, passed one token partial-birth abortion ban, many free-trade agreements, many other programs increasing the size of government. This cannot be a repeat, and I pray that the party realized neoconservatism is not Conservatism. Most of the GOP is just as much about statism as the Democrats, but their pandering to the Christian Right gives us an opportunity to force their hand.

We have 4 years, and one thing can be sure: if the Democrats have resolved their infighting, they will have their act together in 2020. We have only 2 years until 2018, We cannot underestimate how hard it will be for the Republicans to keep control of everything after 2020. The Republicans lost the popular vote, but this election was a reaction to a corrupt Clinton, a Bernie loss, and Obama’s abuses, and these voters are just as willing to switch back to the Democrats if nothing happens.

I’m being overtly optimistic here.

None of what I said above will mean anything if we as Christians do not start acting like Christians are suppose to act. Trump is no savior, he is God’s mercy extended just a little while longer. We deserved Hillary, but God gave us a lesser sentence. Trump is far from perfect, and his cooperation with the GOP congress is yet to be determined. Many of his positions are nationalistic in nature, hardly Biblical, if not anti-Biblical. It is yet to be determined if the GOP congress will listen to the Christian Conservatives, many of them have become weak on the issues we care about. Many of them support a pluralistic, populist agenda. Trump ran on a populist platform, but we shouldn’t care about popular opinion. Our foundation for politics must be rooted solidly in an exegesis understanding of the Bible. We have lost the war on traditional marriage. We are now focused on abortion, and freedom of conscious and the freedom to fully practice our faith, being fully aware this will put us at odds with a lot of populist voters.

#Trump is God's mercy extended a little longer. We deserved #Hillary, but #God gave us a lesser sentence.—@wscott84

How are we to live as Christians for the next 4 years?

Pray - every day - for every leader in our nation. Pray for Trump, pray for the GOP congress, pray for the Supreme Court, pray for your Governor, pray for the Democrats. I can’t stress this enough. We have all heard the saying “Prayer changes things”, how much it will change things is yet to be determined, but prayer keeps our focus and trust on God. Prayer reminds us that we are appealing to God to use these flawed individuals in Washington to save the nation, to save unborn children, to end the assault on Christian businesses and conscious. In all reality how urgently and frequently we pray will be a precursor to God’s will for our nation. If we realize people lack the will and discipline to pray, we know God was only holding back his judgment for a short while.

Fix our churches. The current state of Christianity doesn’t deserve freedom of religion, freedom of conscious, freedom of worship. We have abused it. Our theology is weak, our eschatology is weak, our understand of God’s law is weak, our worship is weak, our ability to walk in agape love is weak, our Christian witness is weak, but our idolatry is strong. Too many Christians in America voted for Trump, completely overlooking his fatal character flaws.

Don’t get me wrong, Trump won, and more importantly Hillary lost. But people voted for Trump because they are in love with the nation, to the point of idolatry. It was a vote for pragmatism over principle. Those of us who voted third party or dissented did so because in the end Biblical principle is more important than political pragmatism. But we also won’t stand by and let a Republican led government not end abortion, and Obamacare, and the freedom of Christian conscience once and for all.

The church needs to realize it’s about more than abortion, and freedom of religion. We should fight tooth and nail to end abortion, but America has many more problems to be addressed. We should realize that we are using pluralism to our advantage, but God was never please to allow paganism and occultism to be practiced. It’s not Biblical.

In addition, the church needs to realize that Romans 13 is not a license to the government to pander to Christians then push forth a godless agenda. The caveat of Romans 13 was that the government was a minister of God, bearing the sword to punish evil. You would be hard pressed to find support for Hitler among those who frequently quote Romans 13, but too many Christians don’t connect the dots that evil is defined, solely in the Bible. God’s magistrate must punish evil as defined in the Bible with the proper level of punishment as defined in the Bible.

Many other issues remain. Pornography and sex slavery is at pandemic levels, divorces happen frequently for umbilical reasons. Drug and alcohol abuse remains a problem. Sexual immorality is rampant as are STDs. Children are sent to public schools to be indoctrinated by the state, thus becoming worshippers of the state. Many parents are unwilling to take upon the responsibility to educate their children with a Biblical education through homeschooling. The church is failing to adequately replace the government welfare system with a Biblical system of taking care of the poor, orphans, and widows.

Once and for all we need to forsake awful Dispensationalism. It is terrible theology in both thought and practice. It sections off the church from the historic God’s people, through whom we are clearly unified in Ephesians as one God’s people. Consequently, Dispensationalism produces a whole market segment of bad theology, spawning terrible movies and books, and creating idols out of doomsday predictors. It improperly divides God’s law, leaving many ignorant to what is applicable today, and what laws we can derive the general equity from. In addition, it mandates an idolatry of an anti-Christ Israeli state, to our own shame, placing us on the hook for their many sins.

We need to end easy believism: “Say this prayer, and you’re saved so you can now go on sinning”. We need to correct the abuses of the mega-church, the prosperity Gospel, and the feel good Gospel. We need to fight back hard against the apostate liberal churches, who have not only rejected Biblical teaching on homosexuality, but they have rejected God ordained roles for men and women inside the church, the authority of scripture, and the sin of abortion. We need to watch out for wolves in our churches, they are being sent by the Hillary's of the world. We need to place more importance on the authority of scripture, and reject those who make idols out of “conscience” and “listening to the spirit”. We need restore Biblical discipline and the accountability of elders and do away with one man pastor shows.

We need to fix racial relations in the church once and for all. All races are equal in the eyes of God, and the Gospel goes out to all races. African Americans are not an inferior race, Mexicans are not second class people, and we must properly divide Islam from Middle Easterner. Many Middle Easterner Christians are facing heavy persecution right now under ISIS and other Islamic nations. Kinism is not Biblical, it is a sin, and so is any ideology which would place one race above another. In addition, we cannot brush off or whitewash the concerns of those who suffer from increased police brutality. We must be willing to humbly listen, and offer Biblical solutions that address favoritism and partiality and injustice. We must mourn with those who mourn. We must approach immigration from a Biblical standpoint, not a nationalistic standpoint.

Finally, We need to hold our government accountable, and prayerfully so, and educatedly so. We have been given 4 years breathing room to fix our churches without the heavy hand of the government, but our momentum must pour out into an ultimatum for our Government leaders. We should be unceasing in our fight to end abortion, and should be calling our senators and representatives to hold them accountable, and demand they take action. We must be vocal and opposing anything evil they might attempt to do, and if they start to become distracted with other issues. And we shouldn’t do it alone, Babies Are Murdered Here is an anti-abortion ministry ready to give 100% to the next 4 years, to hold Congress accountable. If we want freedom of conscious and the freedom to run our churches and business in a God glorifying way, then we should deserve it. We should be willing to divide fabricated bigotry like not endorsing sin, from true bigotry like discriminating against other races, without whitewashing the real bigotry. We should be ready to depart ways with pluralism and denounce injustice which happened under the freedoms we wanted as Christians instead of whitewashing it with the saying “I support their right”.

If we want to know why America is screwed up, look no further than the church, and see how much it is screwed up. Let’s fix it. If we do not practice these 4 things above, if we do not seek God first in this matter, then rest assure that these 4 years will be wasted. The opportunity will be lost, and the chance to get it again will be slim. It’s up to us to act like Christians first and foremost, to place God above nation, and put away divided loyalties. If so, we have a real opportunity to end abortion once and for all, to stop the sexually immoral agenda once and for all, and stop the growing size and tyranny of the state once and for all. But if we make Trump or the Republicans our god, or if we continue to try and live “The American Dream”, we will get the judgment we deserve.